Dessert Wines Moving Back Into Public's Good Graces

RUTHERFORD, CALIF. — The young couple from Iowa had sampled a half dozen Inglenook wines and had already decided which ones to buy when someone suggested they try the 1984 Late Harvest Gewurztraminer.

It was a rich gold in color, smelled of flowers and honey and had a delicate, irresistible taste of nectar.

The reaction was immediate. By the time the man said, ''Wow, we've got to take some of this home,'' the woman was revising their shopping list.

The Iowans' reaction was typical of people in tasting rooms in Napa and Sonoma counties whenever one of California's new dessert wines is poured.

Until recently such wines could be tasted or purchased at only a few California wineries. But during the last three years, more wineries have started making dessert wines and selling them nationwide.

The resurgence of dessert wines is a sign of the maturity of the California wine industry and of public taste. For years, the bulk of California wine was sweet but rather crude: white ports, tokays and muscatels. In the mid-1960s, Americans turned to better-quality table wines and decided, mistakenly, that the only sophisticated wines were dry. In the '80s, however, wine drinkers discovered that some of Europe's most fashionable -- and costly -- wines, such as Sauternes, were sweet, and luxuriously so.

That was not news to some California wine makers, who had begun to make small lots of dessert wine that were very different from those that gave sweet wines such a bad name.

Today's dessert wines are made from better grape varieties and with more skill. The grapes are picked at just the right time, and fermentation is monitored very carefully to balance sugar and acid levels. The result is wines that are sweet but still crisp.

Most dessert wines fall into two categories.

One group is late harvest wines from gewurztraminer or Johannisberg riesling grapes (and sometimes sauvignon blanc or semillon). They are made in years with long growing seasons so that grapes can be left to shrivel on the vine, losing water and raising the proportion of sugar. Grapes harvested very late in the season may develop ''botrytis,'' a beneficial mold also known as ''noble rot.'' The mold makes the grapes drier and even sweeter. These grapes are hand-picked, so the wines made from them can be very expensive.

In addition to Inglenook's gewurz, look for late harvest or botrytis wines from Robert Mondavi, Kendall-Jackson, Sebastiani, Freemark Abbey, Franciscan and Chateau St. Jean. Most are sold in half-bottles for $10 to $20.

The other group of wines is muscat, an intensely perfumed wine that is usually crisper and has a lower level of residual sugar (7 percent or less) than the late harvest wines. Some muscats can be served with dinners, but most are better with light desserts.

Among the least expensive (under $10) and most readily available are Mondavi's Moscato d'Oro and Muscat Amabile from Sutter Home, the white zinfandel giant. Other good muscats are made by Louis Martini, Chateau St. Jean, Sebastiani, Pat Paulsen and St. Francis. If you'd like to try muscat made in a sweeter, stronger style, try Beaulieu Vineyards' Muscat de Frontignan or Quady's Essensia (made from orange muscat) and Elysium (from black muscat).

Dessert wines are still specialties for most wineries, but they give their makers pride. ''They're fun for the wine makers to make, and we like to drink them,'' said Inglenook's general manager, Dennis Fife. He began collecting the dessert wines of other wineries years ago when they were rare.